The role of the editor in some icelandic novels

The editor as curator

BY JÓN YNGVI JÓHANNSSON

One of the customary tasks of the literary critic is to attempt to describe new movements in contemporary society. This task is perhaps particularly heavy for Nordic critics; we cannot escape tradition and must continually try to clamber onto the shoulders of Georg Brandes – to find our own Main currents for our time. Many of the articles that appear in this journal conform to that pattern. Their purpose is to point out trends, find common denominators, trace the tracks of modern life in literature, and turn modern life directly into literary history. An example of such an article from Iceland is ‘Trouble in fine times’, subtitled ‘Icelandic nihilo realism’ by Kristján B. Jónasson, which appeared in Nordisk Litteratur 2000. The article looks at some young Icelandic authors and examines their work within the context of the economic development of Icelandic society during the last few decades.
But a literary critic can have more than one role, and the one under discussion here, Kristján B. Jónasson, is also the editor at the publishing house Forlagið. He has been prominent as such for a while, in particular because of three novels, all written by very young novelists, which are designed to reflect the present time, and seem to have been written to order, or at any rate in close association with the editor.

Goddess, The Conqueror and Au pair in Brussels
The first novel of this kind was Goddess, published in 2000. Goddess is written by three young women, the journalist Birna Anna Björnsdóttir, the pianist Oddný Sturludóttir and the film student Silja Hauksdóttir. The editor had originally contacted one of them while searching for people to write a collection of short stories, but was instead offered a novel written collectively by the three of them. The cover boasts a picture of Dís’ face, which is actually a computerised composite photo of their three faces. Dís is a young, single woman in Iceland in the year 2000, and her life is a cross-section of those elements of Icelandic society that at the time were part of the so-called ‘new economy’. When she’s not working for an up-and-coming financial company she’s an assistant for an advertising-collective consisting of Icelanders studying film in Los Angeles. She has a diverse group of friends and acquaintances, ranging from arty-farty types to soon-to-be financial whizzes to normal kids.
She herself is going through a mild existential crisis: she is not studying, she’s in a job with no future prospects, she doesn’t have a boyfriend and doesn’t know what to do with her life. Dís’ search for herself, along with the events of her life and her friends’ lives at the turn of the millennium, are simultaneously a panorama of Icelandic society at that time. In a society which places a firm emphasis on prosperity, in which everyone seems to be on their way to becoming successful, Dís is in many ways an outsider. However, it does look as though things will turn out for the best, since the novel is vivacious and warmly ironic, rather than a sharp critique of its society.
2002 saw the publication of The Conqueror, the story of Dagbjartur þórarinsson, a business administrator. The author is Magnús Guðmundsson, a young literary critic who works for an advertising company. As before, the initiative came from the editor, Kristján B. Jónasson, who originally commissioned Mr. Guðmundsson to write a modern-day version of Machiavelli’s The Prince. The Conqueror is Dagbjartur’s description of his life and his view of the world. He has managed to become rich and powerful in a short space of time, not by doing any work himself but by using others and making them slave for him. He holds an important position in a large company, but understands little of what goes on there. He claims the credit for other people’s work, abuses the human kindness and friendship he is shown, tramples people underfoot when he can – and is proud of it. He ignores all the whining about society, morality, equality and fairness. Such talk is for losers who will never own as a big a house as him, as big a jeep, or as submissive a wife. The irony is clear. The novel is written in the form of a traditional satire, except that Dagbjartur always turns out to be right; he succeeds in everything – and he gets away with everything. The Conqueror is clearly influenced by self-help books, and those who want to find out whether they are conquerors, average Joes or nobodies can even take a test on the internet to determine whether they have the potential to be a conqueror like Dagbjartur.
The third novel was published in autumn 2002. It is called Au pair in Brussels, is written by a young journalist and literary critic called Elísabet Ólafsdóttir, aka Beta Rock, and came into being in a way similar to the other two novels. It is based on numerous e-mails sent by Elísabet to her friends, when she was working as an au pair in Brussels a few years ago. The editor’s attention was drawn to these letters and he immediately ordered a novel from her, a kind of expanded version of the mails. This novel was published in autumn 2002. Structured as a traditional tale of self-awakening, the novel describes several months in the life of the au pair, Lísa (Elísabet). The months slip past in a haze of drinking and partying, until the place decides it has had enough of her and she is sent back to Iceland, having gained in experience but probably not in maturity.

The editor as curator
The nature of the art world has changed drastically during the last few decades. Exhibitions no longer consist of the entire works of a single artist from a particular period, nor of a collection of works by different artists. The power of the art historian, and his/her influence on creativity itself and its exposition, has greatly increased. It is now common for art historians to set up exhibitions, to select works according to a particular theme, or even to commission them. The art historian thus provides the overall concept of the exhibition, which can then be said to be his creation. The novels discussed in this article are part of a similar development. The traditional structure of the literary world has been overturned: the critic is now in the driving-seat, and instead of revealing the connections between literature and society, culture and other texts, he orders novels that reflect society and culture, that capture the ‘now’, as all realistic novels, from all times, have tried to do. But there is naturally another side to this, concerning the market and the reader. When an editor commissions works of a particular type, one is forced to ask oneself whether he is not acting equally as a marketing manager. Is literature defined in terms of target groups and their various needs, just like any other product? One reviewer came to the conclusion that it was always difficult to choose Christmas-present books for people between the ages of 16 and 30 – and that Goddess solved that problem very nicely!
If this is really true then one could imagine at least two reactions. On the one hand, that the publication of these books confirms that literature has finally been consumed by the marketplace, and that its time as an aesthetic and social force is at an end. On the other hand, that we have to dig deeper, and read this whole publishing affair as the work of one author, the literture curator Kristján B. Jónasson, who both plays with the market and exposes it with a dose of its own medicine.

Translated by Brynhildur Róbertsdóttir